


Dead Man Walking

by athena_crikey



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Deformity, Exaggerated rumours of death, Fluff, Friendship, Grief, M/M, Nursing, Tender - Freeform, h/c, no-nen Gon, post-Chrollo fight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:54:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26270707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athena_crikey/pseuds/athena_crikey
Summary: Gon sees a shadow cross his face and the realisation strikes him suddenly: Hisoka is sitting because he can’t stand. Because he can barely move.“Hisoka,” he begins. At that moment the magician’s eyes flutter, his breath escaping in a sigh. He slips forward off the edge of the bed and Gon darts forward to catch him, heart hammering in his chest. He lowers him gently to the floor, cradling him carefully.
Relationships: Gon Freecs/Hisoka
Comments: 16
Kudos: 256





	Dead Man Walking

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Ходячий мертвец](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29660544) by [GanbareGanbare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GanbareGanbare/pseuds/GanbareGanbare)



Gon’s good at keeping in touch with his friends. He texts with Killua every day, and emails Kite and Leorio regularly. Even Kurapika has been easier to talk to on the phone since he was elevated to the ranks of the Zodiacs, although he doesn’t ever answer his emails. Gon still passes on jokes and news to Morel and Knov, training videos to Shoot and Knuckles, and new recipes to Palm (“How to bake a cake with 5x the sugar!”). 

He never hears from Hisoka. He got the magician’s number off Kurapika after the York New auction action last year, but has never used it. It sits in his contact list, just a tiny reminder of the past, of a dream that will never now become reality. His nen is gone, ransomed to pay for Pitou’s death, and there’s no getting it back. He will never fight Hisoka again, will never defeat him. He tries not to think about it, because there’s no point in dwelling, but the sight of the magician’s name in his contact list inevitably makes Gon’s stomach drop into his boots. 

Ever since meeting Hisoka, since he first felt that endless blood lust, Gon has been unable to forget him. Some part of the magician is seared into his mind, a memory of golden eyes and incredible nen. He’s forever in the back of Gon’s thoughts as the yardstick against which he measures himself – and now, he can’t think of it without knowing he will always be found lacking. 

Most of the time, he doesn’t think about it. It’s just when he sees shops selling magic tricks for kids, or Elastic Love bubble gum, or occasionally when the moon is full and he’s alone by the ocean and remembers the one week they spent together training to defeat Razor’s pirates. He never felt bittersweet when he was little, not even last year before the Chimera Ants. 

Maybe it’s a sign that he’s growing up. 

Gon’s travelling on the Yorbian continent when he hears the newsflash from Heaven’s Arena: One of their floor masters has been defeated by a challenger, has been killed. He looks up and sees Hisoka’s face outlined in a black box, golden eyes smiling at the camera. 

For a minute, he doesn’t understand. Gets mixed up, can’t see how the station is calling Hisoka a challenger when he’s a floor master. Then he realises what the newsflash is telling him. 

Hisoka is dead. Killed in Heaven’s Arena on his own floor. Gone.

“The fight was exceptionally bloody,” the reporter says, “with numerous casualties among the audience. The ultimate victor was the challenger, Chrollo Lucifer.”

Chrollo. Head of the Spiders. The man Hisoka infiltrated the Troupe and spent more than two years trying to fight. So he finally managed to get his wish. And he lost. And now he’s gone. Gon swallows, pressing his thumb to his chest. For some reason it’s tight, his breastbone aching. He feels cold, feels a sucking emptiness inside. The sound fades out from the world as though someone had turned down a master knob, his eyes losing focus as he continues to stare up at the news broadcast. 

Hisoka has always been undefinable. Too far ahead to be a rival, too friendly to be an enemy, too frightening to be a friend. Hisoka is in a class of his own, is only Hisoka, the name conveying everything about him: the sway of his hips, the bright fire of his eyes, the throb in his voice. Strong as an ox, smart as a fox, fickle as a cat. A whimsical liar, he had once called himself. 

And now he’s dead. Gon doubts that anyone will go to his funeral; he wasn’t the sort of person who made friends. He will be put in the ground without anyone to cast the first handful of earth, without flowers, without song. 

Gon pulls out his phone and accesses the airship network. Buys a ticket for Heaven’s Arena. 

He can’t let Hisoka be put to rest alone.

  
***

Gon arrives in the city just before sunset, the sky a vivid, tasteless orange thanks to vehicle exhaust. He catches a cab across town to the Arena, traffic slow. There are two million people living here, and he thinks he’s probably the only one who cares that Hisoka is dead. It makes him feel terribly empty, and a little angry, his cheeks tight and pink when he sees them in the car window. People are talking and laughing on the streets, holding coffees and shopping bags and smart phones, all of them going about like nothing’s happened. For a short while, Hisoka was Gon’s whole world, was the reason he ate and slept and breathed, was the sun that woke him and the moon that put him to sleep at night.

None of these people know or care that he’s gone.

Heaven’s Arena is as bright and vibrant as always, all neon and adrenaline. Overhead announcements are calling fighters to their matches, fans are swaying in the foyer like sea foam buffeted back and forth by competitors. Behind the glass booths the staff are hurrying to sell tickets, t-shirts, food. 

Money. It’s all about money. Heaven’s Arena turns out a huge profit each year despite its lavish spending on its fighters, its financial success guaranteed less by ticket and merchandise sales than by the 10% cut it takes of all bets. There’s no sign here that anything unusual has happened, that a man is dead. If business stopped at the Arena every time someone died, it would never get started. 

Gon still remembers the layout of the ground floor, the location of the back offices. He slips away into the hidden corridor that leads to the management area, twisting the knob right off a locked door and pushing through. 

There’s an open space with filing cabinets in the middle and offices around the sides, most of which have the lights on and the doors closed. A woman in a plain suit and glasses comes out of one of them; she pauses when she sees Gon. “You shouldn’t be back here.”

“I want to know about a funeral. For Hisoka.”

Her face darkens. “He was trouble right up to the end. Destroyed the arena and killed dozens of spectators – we’re still cleaning up after –”

Gon breaks in before he can get angry. “But you’re gonna bury him. Right?” 

“That’s not my department.”

“Then who can I ask?” 

She sighs and pushes her glasses up on her face. She steps over to a nearby office and knocks on the door, then sticks her head in. “There’s a kid here asking about Hisoka’s funeral.”

A tall chubby man with a mustard stain on his shirt comes out; he looks down at Gon. “There’s not going to be a funeral,” he says flatly.

“What? Why not – he deserves –”

“The body was claimed by a relative. Not our business to get involved if someone wants to bury him privately.”

A relative? Gon frowns. He doesn’t know anything about Hisoka’s personal life, but the idea that the magician has relatives is surprising. He’s always pictured Hisoka alone, unfettered, unchained. He knows the man was twisted inside like a corkscrew, whether he was born that way or life wound him into knots, Gon doesn’t know. But it’s a fact that for Hisoka, the gates and locks that keep ordinary people from feeling too intensely, from taking crazy risks, from destroying themselves were all broken. Gon remembers Hisoka sacrificing both arms without a thought just to have a psychological advantage in a fight. Remembers him smiling as he did so. 

Gon understands that; he’s the same. He’s given his hands, his voice, his nen to achieve victory. He and Hisoka didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, but underneath they understood each other in a way almost no one else could. And that understanding has always told him that Hisoka is very much alone.

“What’s their name?” he asks. 

“Signature was illegible. Just the same last name: Morow.”

And no one cared enough to ask for further details, thinks Gon. “Do you know where they took him? Or what they looked like?”

“No. Now leave please, we’re very busy. Your friend caused a lot of trouble before he died.”

Gon sighs. “Yeah, he was good at that.”

  
***

Feeling like a failure, Gon leaves the Arena. He has nowhere to be so he walks down the street and turns into the first hotel he comes to, a big skyscraper built by an oil magnate. It’s very fancy, all marble floors and immense floral displays, but Gon hardly notices any of it. He couldn’t even attend Hisoka’s funeral, and now he feels like he doesn’t know how to say goodbye. Like he’ll never neatly tie off his feelings, like years from now he’ll stare down at Hisoka’s number in his phone and still feel all knotted up inside.

Hisoka would probably laugh at the idea of Gon trying to mourn him. 

He wanders up to the front desk and takes a room, not even worrying about the immense expense of it. He has money. It’s not important. 

The reception clerk directs him to the elevators and he pads slowly over, still lost in thought. A familiar scent catches his nose as he crosses the wide elegant reception area. A smell that’s entirely wrong for this fancy hotel with its well-dressed clients. 

Blood. 

Interested despite himself, Gon looks up. The scent leads to the elevators. He follows it, waiting for a car and stepping in when it arrives. The smell is stronger here, and looking down he sees two tiny dark splotches on the rich merlot-coloured carpet. 

Briefly he considers trying to track it – for fun, for distraction. But there are 24 guest floors listed, plus additional floors for conference facilities, lounges, bars, and swimming pool. Checking them all would take ages, and really isn’t it wrong to try to distract himself? Isn’t that cruel to Hisoka? 

He slots his card into the reader and presses the button for his floor. The elevator whizzes upwards and he waits, staring at his reflection in the golden doors. It reminds him of seeing himself in Hisoka’s eyes, of the way the magician’s irises gleamed, full of mayhem.

Gon’s chest is suddenly tight again. He grits his teeth and twists his thumb knuckle in over his heart, willing his body to loosen up. 

The elevator dings and the doors open; Gon steps out onto his floor. But here too he smells the scent of blood – sharper, clearer. And with it another scent. Tightness forgotten he pinches his nose and closes his eyes, concentrating. 

Bubble gum. 

His eyes snap open and he starts to jog, then to run. Down the long corridor, ignoring his own room and focusing solely on the scent trail. It stops at a corner door: 2004. The smell is unmistakable: fresh blood, burnt flesh, and bubble gum. 

It can’t be Hisoka. It’s someone else, someone with an injury who happened to be chewing bubble gum. 

But all his mind paints is an image of the magician sprawled on the floor, bloody and beaten but alive. 

Please, let him be alive. 

Gon reaches out and knocks.

For a long minute there’s no answer. Then, rough and desiccated, a low call comes from within: “What?”

Hisoka’s voice.

Gon’s heart is hammering in his chest, his body suddenly hot. “Hisoka? Hisoka – it’s you, right? You’re alive? Hisoka – please –” He pounds on the door, afraid, anxious, all nerves and fears. 

There’s a heavy step from beyond the door. Then a click. Then, slow as molasses, the door pulls open.

Hisoka is standing inside, golden eyes staring down at him. Slowly his mouth turns upwards into a smile. “Gon,” he purrs, shifting his weight to the side with lithe grace. 

He looks exactly like he always has, pristine and perfect, his smile wry and his eyes dancing. Gon feels his heart throb at the sight of him, realises that he’s _missed_ Hisoka, that locking himself off from the magician has had a toll on him. 

“You’re alive!” 

“Mm, so it would seem. Would you care to come in?” He walks away before Gon can answer, stride long and elegant as a panther’s. He takes a seat on the edge of the bed, mattress sinking beneath him, and crosses his legs. Gon follows, closing the door behind him.

“The news said you were dead – that you were killed in a fight. With Chrollo.”

Hisoka tucks a stray strand of hair delicately behind his ear, his nails sharp and well-tended. There’s no sign that he was in a fight for his life yesterday, no hint of bruises or cuts, much less of mortal injuries. His clothes are clean and pressed, his shoes shining. 

And yet, the room _reeks_ of blood and burnt flesh. 

“Yes. Did you see it? It was simply _glorious_. I have always wondered what it would feel like to have my life stolen from me, lost to one stronger than me. It was _delectable_.” He moans softly, eyes crinkling with pleasure.

“But… you’re still here,” says Gon, slowly crossing the thick carpet towards the bed. The smell of blood is coming from here. From Hisoka. 

“Naturally. One must have their cake and eat it too, otherwise what’s the point? I’m sure if you thought about it hard enough, you could come up with the answer.”

“Won’t you tell me?”

Hisoka looks at him, smile almost tender. “Oh Gon. A magician never reveals his tricks.”

“Hisoka?”

The magician cants his head to the side, blinking up at him. “Hm?”

“You’re hurt, aren’t you? Badly. You’re covering it up, somehow. But I can smell it. The blood, the burns.”

Gon sees a shadow cross his face and the realisation strikes him suddenly: Hisoka is sitting because he can’t stand. Because he can barely move.

“Hisoka,” he begins. At that moment the magician’s eyes flutter, his breath escaping in a sigh. He slips forward off the edge of the bed and Gon darts forward to catch him, heart hammering in his chest. He lowers him gently to the floor, cradling him carefully. 

Whatever magic is holding him together – and it can only be nen – fails abruptly. Hisoka is not pristine, is not perfect. He is bloody and torn and wrecked. His neck and shoulders are flayed; his left hand and right ankle are bloody stumps. His face is half burnt off, his nose gone with just a blackened cavity left behind, his lips seared away to reveal bloody teeth. His clothes are torn and blackened and blood-caked.

Hisoka stirs once in Gon’s arms, breathing laboured. Then his head falls back against Gon’s shoulder, his body heavy. 

“Hisoka!” He stares down at the ruin of the man he set as his goal, as his target, his dream. At the cruelty of his injuries, the blood and the burns and the lashes. “ _Hisoka!_ ” His throat is tight, his eyes suddenly wet. 

Hisoka’s lashes flutter. “Mm. So devastated. For me?” he wonders, voice harsh once more, but barely above a whisper. His words are difficult to understand, improperly pronounced without lips. “No tears, Gon. I have no regrets. It was _marvellous_.” He sighs, the fingers of his good hand twitching. His usually-immaculate nails are stained, broken. 

“I’ll get you to the hospital. They’ll take care of you. You’re gonna be fine!”

“No. My enemies… are strong. No hospital. For now… I must be dead.”

Gon’s already got his phone out. Instead of calling for an ambulance, he dials Leorio. 

“Yo, Gon!”

Gon ignores the greeting, speaking fast and fluidly. “Leorio – it’s an emergency I’m with Hisoka and he’s hurt, bad. You’ve gotta tell me what to do.”

“Hisoka? What happened?”

“He lost a fight in Heaven’s Arena to Chrollo. He’s all torn up and burned and bloody. It’s like he was in a bomb blast or something. He won’t go to the hospital.”

“Can you connect me through video?”

“Yeah.” Gon thumbs through his apps and starts a video call. Leorio’s sitting behind a desk looking anxious, his glasses gone. “Here, see, his face is burned bad.” He shows Leorio Hisoka’s ruined face; he hears his friend take in a shocked breath. “And his neck, too…” he pans down to the ribboned flesh, the beauty of Hisoka’s long throat torn apart. “And his hand and foot…” he shows those, the ugly, bleeding, blackened stumps. He has to fight to keep from crushing the phone, his mind awash with basic, raw emotions: rage, fear, pain. 

“He should definitely be in the hospital,” says Leorio, sounding worried. 

Gon takes a breath, forcing himself to be calm. “Well he won’t go. And I don’t think it would be a good idea to try to make him. Just tell me what to do.”

“Okay. Well first off you’re going to need supplies. Clean water, bandages, towels, wipes.”

“I’ll get them.” He looks down; Hisoka is lying limp in his arms, his breathing rough but steady. “You’re gonna be okay. I’ll take care of you,” he tells the magician. Then he lays him down carefully on the floor and gets up to put a call through for medical supplies.

  
***

It takes almost two hours with Leorio’s help to clean and bandage Hisoka’s injuries. As ugly as the burns are, they’ve cauterized the amputated flesh and bone and stopped a lot of the bleeding. Hisoka doesn’t need stitches, just cleaning and bandaging.

Gon rips the magician’s stained shirt off and washes his long limbs and chest carefully, dabbing with a wet cloth at caked-on blood and being careful not to wash away the clotting on the gruesome rents around his neck. Hisoka’s beautiful body is covered in scars – not just injuries from this most recent fight, but old ones that have faded but not disappeared. Whatever nen power of his has kept them hidden all this time is gone, and Gon can see the toll the magician’s violent life has had on him. He traces white cuts and browned burns with his fingers, feeling the unevenness beneath his hands. 

There’s nothing to be done for Hisoka’s face; Leorio tells Gon that even a hospital would struggle to deal with the injuries to his nose and mouth. Expensive plastic surgery might make functional improvements to help with eating and breathing, but he’ll always be a grotesque mockery of a human face. There’s nothing to be done about his amputated right foot other than a prosthesis, and on his left hand only his ring and pinky fingers remain; the others are bloody knobs. The cuts and burns to his shoulders and neck are the least serious, will scar but not hideously. 

Gon wraps them all in white cotton, hiding his disfigured flesh, making him once more pristine. 

“Thanks Leorio,” Gon says when he’s finally finished, when he’s tied off the last of the bandages and wiped his forehead. “I’ve got it from here.”

“Call me back with an update when you can, okay? If you need more help I can find someone there who would be discreet. Just let me know.”

“Thanks,” says Gon again, and hangs up. He tucks his phone away in his pocket and turns back to Hisoka. 

The magician is lying on the floor, his hair tumbling down as the spray and gel he uses loses its hold. Gon, bolder than he feels he’s ever been, reaches out and runs the tips of his fingers through it. It’s thick and tangled, impossible to comb without washing. Gon lets his fingers run down further, along the side of Hisoka’s closed eye, his lashes long but pale brown over his imperfect skin. Without his makeup it’s no longer one uniform shade of white, is dotted with freckles and scratches. The paint on his cheeks is almost entirely gone; the last of it rubs off under Gon’s careful touch, teardrop vanishing. Hisoka’s cheek is rough with early stubble, his strong jaw lined with it. 

Slowly, like a flower blooming in the spring sun, Hisoka’s eyes slip open. Gon stares down at him, his fingers still pressed gently into the straight line of his jaw. “You’re gonna be okay,” he whispers. 

The corners of Hisoka’s mouth twitch, and Gon realises with a pang that without lips he can’t smile. All the emotions he’s been pushing aside for the past two hours spring on him like a tiger, ripping into him. His fingers slip from Hisoka’s face into a tight, shaking fist; he stares down at it. “Hisoka…”

Long, elegant, _bloody_ fingers wrap around his fist. “You’re angry,” he says, wonderingly. His thumb – his sole remaining one – rubs along the side of Gon’s hand, almost a caress. It’s surprisingly tender. Gon doesn’t associate tenderness of any kind with Hisoka. Hisoka’s head rolls backwards slightly on the carpet, eyes shifting from Gon to the ceiling. “I’ve gained much. And lost nothing of value.”

“Hisoka! Your fingers, your foot – your face!” Even as he says it though, he knows it’s dumb. He would have sacrificed all that and much more to defeat Pitou. Would have given it all in the blink of an eye. 

“I’m a magician, Gon. There is nothing that I lose which I cannot recall.” His fingers tighten over Gon’s, his broken nails digging into the back of Gon’s hand. 

“Leorio said maybe with surgery,” begins Gon, doubtfully. Hisoka’s eyes draw back to him. They’re curved, amused. 

“Surgery? No. You’ll see…” His eyelids are heavy, his voice fading.

“You should get some sleep,” says Gon. He picks Hisoka up carefully and carries him to the bed. Pushes back the duvet cover and puts him in. His long form relaxes into the mattress, head drooping against the soft pillow. “I’ll stay here on the sofa. In case you need anything.”

“I would quite like you in my bed,” murmurs Hisoka, sleepily. 

“You just need to concentrate on getting better,” replies Gon, pulling the duvet up and over him. 

“Stingy.” Hisoka sighs and his eyes slide closed, lashes sweeping against his freckled cheeks. 

For more than a minute Gon simply stands beside the bed, looking down at the magician. He can understand that Hisoka isn’t worried about his horrific injuries – he’s not one to judge there. But on his own behalf, he’s upset. Upset at seeing Hisoka so cruelly wounded, upset at how close to death he clearly came. 

Not for the first time, Gon recognizes that he has double standards when it comes to what he’s willing to accept when it comes to himself versus the people he cares for. But that’s just natural – they’re so much more important than him. 

When he’s certain that Hisoka’s really sleeping he goes and cleans up the first aid stuff and the bowl of bloody water. Then he makes sure the door is locked, brushes his teeth and washes his face, and curls up on the sofa. 

Lights out.

  
***

“Gon? Gon~ Mm, _Gon_ ,” croons a familiar voice.

Gon opens his eyes and looks up. Hisoka is bent over him, smile on his lips, his hands resting on his hips. 

For an instant Gon blinks, trying to remember where he is and what he’s been doing. 

Then he remembers: bloody gouges, burnt limbs, missing lips. Dark, ugly smells and an empty, sucking feeling in his chest. 

“Hisoka!” he gasps, sitting up; Hisoka leans back, tapping his toe on the floor. 

He looks completely normal. Beautiful face, perfect make-up, undamaged hand resting on his hips and both feet on the floor. Like yesterday had been a bad dream – a nightmare. 

“I told you: A magician can return what is lost,” he says, seeing the incredulity on Gon’s face. “Or didn’t you believe me?” he says, pouting. 

“But – you – you really _were_ hurt. _Badly_.”

Hisoka’s smile returns. “And then you came and nursed me back to health. And look: I’ve made a full recovery.” He spreads his arms, showing off his pristine, healthy form. 

Gon shakes his head. “It’s a trick,” he says.

“Oh? Do you know how it’s done?”

“With your nen. Somehow.”

Hisoka brushes his thumb against his cheek. “Then you don’t know. And so it’s not a trick. It’s magic. Right?”

Gon sits up, swinging his legs over the edge of the sofa. “If you say so.” He smiles. “I’m just glad you’re alive.”

“Oh Gon. How could I go and leave someone so ravishing as you behind me?” He leans forward and, before Gon can react, kisses him on the tip of the nose. “Thank you for last night. The next time we spend the night together, I can guarantee you neither of us will be sleeping.”

Gon heats up like a furnace, face burning. “ _Hisoka!_ It’s not like that.”

The magician straightens and laughs. “Perhaps not today. But one day… who knows? In bed or in battle, we have more to share.” 

“Those are _not the same thing_.”

Hisoka just smiles at him, golden eyes curved in pleasure. 

And Gon, despite himself, can’t help but smile too.

END


End file.
